- Big Tobacco still doesn’t get it. For some reason, these kooks continue to not only thrive on making billions of dollars with products that kill degenerates too weak in willpower to stop using them, but they act completely indignant every time the government imposes further restrictions on their products of death. For example, five members of Big Tobacco including some of the largest in the United States, filed a lawsuit against the federal government on Tuesday, alleging that government-mandated graphic warning labels on cigarette packages unconstitutionally infringe on the companies' rights. "The primary complaint is that we think it violates the First Amendment for the government to require people who produce a lawful product to essentially urge prospective purchasers not to buy it," says Floyd Abrams the attorney for the plaintiffs. These ungrateful a-holes have filed suit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia and now it will be R.J. Reynolds, Lorillard, Commonwealth, Liggett, and Santa Fe Natural Tobacco against the Food and Drug Administration, its chief, Margaret Hamburg, and Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius. The suit comes two months after the FDA unveiled nine new warning labels, complete with graphic photos and the phone number 1-800-QUIT-NOW. As per FDA regulations, starting in September, 2012, half of each cigarette package will have to display one of those new labels. The only thing that could make the labels better is if they carried the “Smoking Kills” message in size 72 font that cigarettes in western Europe must sport. Just don’t tell that to Abrams, a well-known First Amendment expert. "The government has lot of power to require warnings, but it doesn't require half of a cigarette pack to scream out, 'Don't buy this product!," he fumed. "What is at issue is putting photographs of diseased people on every cigarette pack, include a phone number, and ask people to stop smoking. It's the direct advocacy to not buy the product, as opposed to a straightforward warning." And the problem is? The world would be a better place with those labels – for everyone but your clients, which again is not a problem. Go ahead and seek some sort of preliminary injunction against the warning labels before the statute goes into effect next year, but know that you’re going to fail. This is one of the rare government actions that both makes sense and makes the world a better place. For the first time in 25 years, the FDA has revised warnings on cigarette packaging and given loser smokers one more slap in the face they clearly need…………
- Leave it to free-agent receiver Terrell Owens to hype free-agent receiver Terrell Owens like no one’s business. Owens has always loved him some him and despite tearing his ACL earlier this year (the date of the injury remains unclear) and undergoing surgery to repair the tear, he remains bullish on a return to the NFL. The normal recovery time for an athlete to get back onto the field is anywhere from eight months to a year, but Owens boasted earlier this week that he's ahead of schedule in his rehabilitation and hopes to contribute to an NFL team this season. "The doctors said the timetable was six to eight months, and up to a year, of rehab process. Obviously, they gave someone of my caliber a four- to six-month window. Four months is very ambitious, and that's where I'm at now: four months and four or five days out from surgery," Owens sai. "Talking with the doctors, going through my personal training in L.A. and in Pensacola (Fla.), they stressed that I'm way ahead of schedule. I'm giving myself the timetable of maybe two or three weeks into the season that I'll be ready. That's giving myself a grace period, for setbacks. I'm rehabbing my butt off to get back on the field." He still stonewalled when asked for details of how the injury occurred, saying, "It's nobody's business." He cited his faith in keeping him on track and motivated during his recovery, which included him recently posting a video online of him running some agility drills to show off his progress. He also has to be concerned about finding a team after fellow veteran receiver Randy Moss spent the offseason – without being injured – getting into “freakish” shape in the hopes of finding a new team and ended up retiring because none of the teams he wanted to play for had any interest. Owens understands that reality but is content, unlike Moss, to wait until the inevitable wave of receiver injuries hits the NFL mid-season. "I'm not going to rush into it. But injuries are going to occur during the course of the season. Some receivers are going to go down. I'm going to prepare myself. I'll be ready when the time comes," he said. Owens also insisted that no matter what role he takes when joining a new team, he will ultimately prove that he is still a dominant force. "I still feel like I can do the same thing that I did when I went into Buffalo. They said, 'You're not going to be penciled in as our No. 1 guy. We have our No. 1 guy and our No. 2 guy.' I'm like, all right, fine, I'll let my play do the speaking for me. They had Lee Evans there, but if you look at the end-of-the-year statistics, that'll tell you the tale [55 receptions, 829 yards, six TDs]. Then, I go to Cincinnati last year. Obviously, they had a great receiver there, Chad [Ochocinco]. Again, look at the statistics -- and I missed two or three games [14 games, 72 receptions, 983 yards, nine TDs].” In other words, I’m going to end up as the No. 1 receiver no matter what it says on the depth chart. As always, just T.O. being T.O…………
- Muammar Gaddafi is still clinging to power in Libya, but the country’s National Transitional Council is already outlining plans for the country's path to democracy after the end of Gaddafi's 42-year reign of tyranny. Mustafa Abdel Jalil, chair of the council, defended the legitimacy of his un-elected council in speaking of the post-Gaddafi future. The council has become the de-facto government in the rebel-held east of Libya. "This (transition) period is needed to establish stability... it will not exceed eight months, maybe it will be much less. After which Libyans will be called upon to elect a national congress," Jalil said at a news conference. That call should be chaotic to say the least, but it is what most observers would prescribe to keep Libya on a path toward democracy and to avoid the country descending into chaos. Jalil also explained that a referendum on a new constitution would come with 20 months. Elsewhere in Libya, Gaddafi regime officials were in talks with a special UN envoy on Tuesday night as rebels claimed they would take Tripoli by the end of the month. The United States is on record as proclaiming that the dictator’s “days are numbered.” The settlement meetings between representatives of both sides of the conflict continued Wednesday in Tunisia, with Abdel-Elah al-Khatib, the former Jordanian foreign minister appointed by the United Nations to try to negotiate an end to the saga, presiding over the talks. However, the rebel leaders' Transitional National Council denied that its representatives were involved. They believe that Gaddafi’s control has waned to the point that they no longer need to offer concessions on their demand for his exit from Libya or unconditional surrender. Four days after his supply lines were cut off, the rebels believe Gaddafi is on his last legs. Mansur Saif Al-Nasser, the rebels’ ambassador to France, said they hoped end the war by the conclusion of the holy Muslim month of Ramadan in two weeks' time. "Our forces totally control Zawiyah, which will open the way to Tripoli," Al-Nasser said in a radio interview. "This will allow the population there to revolt. We are entering a decisive phase. Soon we will liberate all of southern Libya. We hope to celebrate the final victory at the same time as the end of Ramadan." Those sentiments were shared by U.S. Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta, who proclaimed, "I think the sense is that Gaddafi's days are numbered." Confident proclamations or not, fighting continued Wednesday in Zawiyah, the oil refinery town 30 miles to the west of Tripoli which controls the supply route to the border with Tunisia. No one is quite sure of Gaddafi’s exact whereabouts or his plans once he is ousted from power, but there has been speculation that he might seek exile in Venezuela, which just happens to be run by fellow despot Hugo Chavez. What a pairing that would be………….
- The battle is old and tired, but at least there is a new voice in the interminable war of words between brothers Liam and Noel Gallagher, formerly of the British rock band Oasis. The band split more than a year ago and the brothers Gallagher haven't stopped sniping at one another since then. Liam Gallagher, now fronting his new band Beady Eye along with other former Oasis members, has done most of the talking. Noel has responded from time to time, but it was Liam who fired off caustic, thinly tweets cracking on his brother the day Noel released the first single from his upcoming solo album. The other former members of Oasis have remained largely silent in the fight, but former Oasis and current Beady Eye member Andy Bell decided this week to chime in Noel Gallagher's comments over the demise of their former band. Noel Gallagher has long claimed Oasis pulled out of their planned performance at the Chelmsford leg of V Festival in 2009 because his brother "had a hangover" and also alleged that a key reason for Oasis' split was that he had tried to charge brother Liam to advertise his clothing company Pretty Green in the band's tour program. Bell denied both of those claims and when asked about the band’s breakup while in Paris, he could not have been more direct in excoriating Noel Gallagher for both his words and his part in the drama. “Bollocks! He lied about a lot of things. The argument about Pretty Green was lies, what he said about V Festival and the fake laryngitis was lies - I don't know, maybe he's convinced that's the truth. I don't know what goes on in his head. I know him, so I'm not disappointed,” Bell fumed. “That's what he's like. I know how he spins the press. He's used the press for years. Interviews and press are secondary for us, that's his life.” As for the claims that it was Liam who was most culpable for the breakup, Bell insisted that was not the case and pointed to the majority of the band staying together and forming Beady Eye without Noel speaks volumes about who was really to blame. “I'm not going to add more fuel to the fire. But I've ended up in a band with Liam, Gem, Chris, with the same management, road crew,” Bell pointed out. "We drove back to the hotel, had a few beers, sat together and said there's nothing to keep us from playing together. We agreed it wouldn't be the end just because Noel left." And the clock is now ticking on either Noel or Liam Gallagher to unleash their own verbal salvo in response to Bell and keep this drama dragging on for as long as possible…………
- Good news, America! We finally have a use for Rhode Island. Just kidding, Rhode Islanders. We’ve always had some use – I think - for our smallest state, but the federal government wants to add another. U.S. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar announced Wednesday that the government is seeking proposals to develop wind energy farms off the coasts of Rhode Island and Massachusetts. The announcement, which Salazar made at Quonset Point — a former Navy installation turned industrial park - was met with rapt enthusiasm by Rhode Island leaders, who hailed the announcement as a significant step in efforts to bring wind turbines and jobs to the Ocean State's coast. Salazar called the announcement a "major milestone" and said he hopes the federal government can sign leases with wind energy developers as soon as next year. "Rhode Island is poised to be very much at the point of the spear in developing offshore wind," Salazar proclaimed. Rhode Island officials have long touted Quonset Park’s potential as a hub for wind turbine assembly. If the government actually does the unusual and follows through on something it has promised to do, the effort could create hundreds of jobs for a state that has one of the highest unemployment rates in the U.S. "There is no single project that has a better hope for a significant change in unemployment," U.S. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) said of the project. The announcement definitely drew out all of the state’s major political figures for a sure-thing photo opportunity and a chance to attach their parasitic selves to a project that could boost their approval rating significantly if it succeeds. Gov. Lincoln Chafee was also on hand to blow major smoke up everyone’s ass, talking in glowing terms about what the wind energy push will do for his state. "This is very exciting for Rhode Island, for the jobs that are going to be created," Chafee said. As part of the plan, the federal government also wants to place wind energy farms on and across the state’s shared border with Massachusetts, centered in a 285-square-mile area between Block Island and Martha's Vineyard. Those who want in on the bidding have 45 days to notify the Department of the Interior. Projections for wind farm projects currently underway in the region have the projected date of actual turbines in actual bodies of water by 2016 or 2017 at the earliest. That means there is plenty of time for whiny environmentalists to chime in with their predictable complaints……….
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